Most are familiar with the life of King Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah.  When he was thirty-nine, he became ill “unto death,” the prophet Isaiah told him.  Yet because of his good life and his fervent prayer to God, he was granted a fifteen year reprieve (2 Chron 32).

            Hezekiah was grateful.  He wrote a psalm of thanksgiving, ending with, For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness, Isa 38:18,19.

            I wonder how he felt on his fiftieth birthday, twelve years later.  I wonder what was running through his mind in year fourteen, and as the fifteenth year dawned, was he still grateful for the extra time God had allowed him, or was he bitter, knowing the end was in sight?  If it were the same illness returning, he had to know this was it, even if he was only 54 years old.  Did he ruin the time he had left by railing about how badly God had treated him, completely forgetting the gift of fifteen extra years?  How would you have acted?

            2 Chronicles gives us a lot of information about how he used those fifteen years, some of it not too wisely, in fact.  Yet he seems to have finally reverted to his former self—a man who worshipped God and did what was right in leading God’s people.  We don’t know, though, how he met his death, whether with a smile of gratitude or a groan of bitterness.  I would like to think the former.

            Has God given you a reprieve?  Sometimes he gives it just as he did Hezekiah, a few more years to live following a major illness or accident, even when the doctors thought it was over.  Sometimes the reprieve is about an increasing disability, yet we still function far longer than anyone ever expected. 

            Sometimes it’s a second chance with our finances—an opportunity to show good stewardship with what the Lord has given us instead of once again running ourselves into the ground with a lack of character and self-control. 

            Maybe he has given you an opportunity to repair a relationship and enjoy years of fellowship with an old friend or family member.  Perhaps, most important of all, he has given you the chance to mend your relationship with Him, to come back from a dalliance with the world and serve him as you ought.

            God gives reprieves every day.  Some are obvious, others not so much.  Look at your life today and instead of seeing a bitter end, see if you can find a second chance you might have missed.  Be grateful for the opportunity instead of resenting the new limits you must live with, and the knowledge that the end might be near. 

            Hezekiah knew exactly how long his reprieve would last.  We don’t.  Today might be the last occasion you have to tell a friend you’re sorry, the last opportunity to make amends for a wrong done long ago.  It might be the last time you get to tell someone you love him.  It might be your final chance to return to God. 

            In all things live like your reprieve is over, for it may very well be.
 
Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him, Isa 30:18.

Dene Ward

I think this might be something I am looking forward to most about Heaven—putting faces to names.  We have studied them so often and at such depth, that each of us has probably pictured Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Esther, Mary (all of them!), Peter, John, Paul and so many others in our minds.  Stuck as we are in our own culture and generation, we probably have erred in our portraits.  Jesus certainly was not the pale, brown-haired, blue-eyed, six foot man in the unstained white robes we see in practically every painting.   

            In fact, if you do as I do sometimes on Sunday mornings and picture him walking among us as our host, communing with us in the feast, you probably see him in robes then too, don’t you?  Yet Jesus came down as a man in a time when everyone wore robes.  The fact that he blended in so well and looked so ordinary was one of his problems—“Who does he think he is?  Isn’t this just the carpenter’s son?  Didn’t we watch him grow up among us?”  No, if Jesus had chosen this generation to make his appearance, he might very well have been in khakis, or even blue jeans, and some of us would have had just as much trouble accepting him as the scribes and Pharisees did.

            Putting faces to names in Heaven will be a revelation.  And we won’t have any problem talking with these great people.  I am sure you have had the experience of needing to speak with someone who is important, someone who is very busy—perhaps the preacher or one of the elders, or someone who is “popular” in whatever venue you happen to find yourself.  You stand in line waiting your turn, and if you are lucky you get 30 seconds before he or she is distracted by something or someone else.  You almost feel like a nuisance, and most of the time I find myself avoiding people like that just so I won’t be any trouble to them. 

            That will not happen in Heaven.  How do I know?  Because it’s Heaven.  Isn’t that the very definition of the word?  No more problems, no more trials, no more feelings of inadequacy.  We will know everyone and they will know us, and no one will need to wait in line for thirty seconds of token time.
Do you know what?  We have that now with God, a taste of Heaven whenever we pray.  He is instantly listening.  He is intent on our every word, even filling in the ones we can’t seem to get out right.  He knows our names and our faces, and with that he knows every problem or fear or anxiety, and we have his undivided attention for as long as we want it.  Our faith means we know him, not just his name, and because we trust him, he knows us too. 
           
            Putting faces to names in this life can be a lot of fun.  Putting a face on God will be amazing.
 
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure, 1 John 3:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

It was my ten year high school reunion, the only one I have ever attended.  I graduated in a class of 800 so I wasn’t exactly pining to see a lot of close, old friends.  I did manage to find four I had known fairly well, but even that turned into a bit of a fiasco.  That sweet girl, someone I thought of as like-minded in her dress, speech, and actions, whose boyfriend became a West Point cadet, both of whom were decidedly to the right in their politics, was now, ten years later, an abortion clinic nurse.  I was absolutely flabbergasted and physically ached when I heard it.

              So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of.  He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé.  She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating.  “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.

              “An abortion,” she immediately replied.  “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it?  Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child?  And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments?  Her life will be ruined.”

              All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch.  “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.

              Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly.  I did.  One article listed these:  poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think.  There it is in a nutshell:  Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was.  And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.      

           And where would we all be because, congratulations!  You just murdered the Messiah. 

               Aren’t we glad she did not?
 
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42
 
Dene Ward

Part 1 appeared yesterday.

When I was studying these women for a class, I found myself amazed by God’s providence and bemused by his methods yet again.  How many times have we said that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways?  His ways are not only different from ours, they often don’t make any sense to us.

            To keep his prophet safe from Jezebel, he sent him into the heart of Jezebel’s home country. To house him he sent him to a poor woman.  To feed him, he sent him to a starving widow.  To encourage him, he sent him to a Gentile.  Would we have even thought to do any of these things in these ways?

            Yet God demands that we accept the same sorts of contradictory things every day.  But many who are last shall be first, and the first last, Matt 19:30.  For whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it, Matt 16:25.  The greatest among you shall be your servant, Matt 23:11.

            In that lies the test of faith.  It is not shown so much in great deeds of heroism as it is in accepting God’s way when it makes no sense.  It is shown when we follow a path that no longer seems to lead anywhere.  It is shown when, day after day, we live the principles his Son lived, not trusting in things of this world, but trusting that God’s way works no matter how it looks from our perspective.  How else could Gideon have gone to battle against an army “without number” with only 300 weaponless men?  How else could Mary have faced a skeptical village every day for the rest of her life when she had a healthy baby six months after marrying?  How else could Mark’s mother have opened her home to praying Christians when everyone knew they were in danger?  How else could Abraham have offered in sacrifice a son through whom God had made so many promises?

            How do we face another trying day today?  By realizing that God does not work like we do, but that his ways do work.  By understanding that we might not actually see here on earth exactly how they work, but trusting that they will anyway.  By knowing that his Spirit will give us the strength to continue, expecting God’s purposes to come to fruition, just as his promises always have.  Day after day after sometimes difficult day.

            God used a poor, starving, heathen woman, living in the middle of his enemies to save his prophet.  Don’t doubt what he can do for you.
 
You are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no savior. I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore you are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and I am God. Yea, since the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it? Isa 43:10-13.
 
Dene Ward

One of the most interesting narratives in the Old Testament concerns the prophet Elijah and his interactions with two Sidonian women.  The first of course, was Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon, who married Ahab, king of Israel.  The second was the widow who lived in Zarephath, eight miles south of Sidon on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  Take a few minutes with me this morning as we compare these two women.

            Jezebel began life as a princess and ended it as a queen, living a life of luxury in a palace.  She moved into Israel, living among the people of God, but proceeded to convert the whole land to Baal worship, chasing down and killing the prophets of Jehovah.  That is how Elijah eventually met the woman of Zarephath.

            This widow to whom God sent his prophet was a poor woman.  She was even at the time she first saw Elijah, gathering wood to make one last meal for her and her son.  Yet she shared with the prophet first and God provided for them all until the famine ended.

            Both of these women knew of Jehovah.  Jezebel was canny enough to use the very law of God when she connived to snatch Naboth’s vineyard away from him.  She paid two false witnesses (“at the mouth of two or three witnesses”) to have him accused of a capital crime.  The widow mentioned to Elijah “Jehovah your god,” at their first meeting.  Elijah, who traveled throughout the northern  kingdom, was not unknown, and surely who and what he was had reached as far as Zarephath, but at that point Jehovah was probably just another god in the pantheon she knew about.  Still, with the witness of the never failing pot of oil and jar of meal, she served Elijah, probably the greatest prophet in the Old Testament as evidenced by his inclusion on the Mount of Transfiguration, for as long as he needed her.

            And that woman, as poor and uneducated as she likely was, understood that she was a sinner.  When her son died, she brought that very fact up to Elijah.  “Having you here has made my sin obvious, and now I am paying for it,” she accused.  When Elijah raised her son from the dead, she seemed to finally reach the correct conclusion about Jehovah.  “Now I know,” she said, “that you are a man of God and that the word of Jehovah in your mouth is truth.”  If this is not a confession of belief in Jehovah as the one true God, then I don’t know what the word means.

            But Jezebel?  Even after all the miracles, even after all the preaching, even after all the prophecies concerning her family that came true, she refused to serve Jehovah.  When God sent Jehu to kill her, she saw death coming and simply put on her makeup.  She accused him of being a “Zimri,” a servant who rose up against his king and killed him in 1 Kings 16, the man her own father-in-law succeeded as king.  As defiant as ever, she went to her death, thinking she was dying with dignity, while the God she defied made certain she did not.

            And so here are the two women—one who had all the advantages of wealth, position, power, family, influence, and life among God’s chosen, and the other, a poor heathen widow whose name even today we do not know.  But which one did Jesus himself use as an example?

            In Luke 4:24-29, he tells some unwelcoming Jews that God had to send Elijah to a Gentile, and a woman, because none of his own people would have cared for him, and the same was happening to him.  Jesus was unacceptable to those first century Jews.  He hung around with the wrong people.  He didn’t understand the value in wealth and worldly/political power.  He insulted the wrong people, the religious pillars.  He was too ordinary and plainspoken, too simple, not a good-looking orator/soldier who would lead them to a glorious and glitzy victory.

            And the lesson to us today?  If Jesus were to come in the same way, would the church welcome him with open arms, or would God have to send him to unbelievers to be cared for?  Would only the sinners we look down on listen to him?  One way to know is how we accept his messengers.  What do we expect of our preachers?  Are they too blunt, too negative, and too impractical?  Do they just need “to move on for the good of the cause?” 

            I have seen and heard of far too many churches that would have chased Elijah to Sidon.  I have seen far too many churches whose values do not match the Lord’s.  And so for us comes this question:  Which Sidonian woman is our role model?
 
For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, for they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth, 3 John 2-5,7-8.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

In 1 Chronicles 13:1-3 we find David addressing all the leaders of his people and proposing that they bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem and to a central position of worship in the nation rather than leaving it in one man’s house. He says they need to do this since “we sought not unto it in the days of Saul.” For the backstory to this, read 1 Samuel 4:1-7:2. A quick recap: The Israelites badly lost a battle to the Philistines and essentially tried to force God into action by carrying the Ark of the Covenant into battle. They soon discovered that it is impossible to force God to do anything and the priests carrying the ark (Eli’s sons) were killed and the ark was captured. Eli died upon receiving the news. God did strike the Philistines with plagues for keeping His ark, though, and they sent it back to Israel on a driverless cart. It wound up in Kiriath-jearim in the house of Abinadab. There it stayed for nearly forty years, the first twenty of which Israel apparently didn’t even worry about where it was. Such was the sad state of the nation’s morality. David, however, was as much a moral and spiritual leader as he was a military and political one, and the time had come to bring the ark back to the people.

1 Chronicles 13:4-8 tells us of the festivities planned for this momentous occasion. David gathered all the people together from the southernmost border unto the northernmost. The ark was placed in a new cart. There was singing and the playing of various musical instruments.  Note especially their fervor: vs. 8 “And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets.” They were worshiping with all their might. But, of course, something went wrong.

1 Chronicles 13:9-14 tells of the death of Uzzah and David’s reaction. Probably Uzzah meant to show respect to the ark. The oxen stumbled and the cart was bouncing, and he didn’t want the ark to fall out and break into little pieces. So he steadied it with his hand. God killed him. David is described as displeased/angry and afraid. Think about how confused he must have been. He was trying to bring God’s ark back to the people so the worship of God could be restored. He was celebrating this momentous occasion with the whole nation, all of them worshiping with all they had, praising God, and in the middle of all this, God kills Uzza. His reaction in vs. 12 is understandable “And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?” He was afraid and unsure how (or if) to proceed. He drops the ark into the nearest available house like a hot potato. It stayed there in Obed-edom’s house for three months while David figured out how to bring the ark, during which time, Obed-edom was blessed.

In that three month interlude, David twice had to battle the Philistines (chapter 14) but he also discovered how to move the ark safely. 1 Chron. 15:2 “Then David said, ‘None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath Jehovah chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him forever.’” So, the Levites were to carry the ark. How did David learn this? Did a prophet tell him? Did God give him a dream? No, it is plainly written in Numbers. 4:15. All David had to do was read the Law already given by God.

1 Chronicles 15:3-13 tells of David bringing together the nation once more and then addressing the Levites. What he says to them in verse 13 is profound “For because ye bare it not at the first, Jehovah our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not according to the ordinance.” So, they were seeking God, but God “made a breach upon” them because they did not seek according to the ordinance or the rule. Well, was their heart right? Yes, remember when they were singing and playing before the Lord, they were doing it “with all their might”, and David, their leader, was the “man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14 cf Acts 13:22). Their hearts were in the right place. Well, did they give their best to God? Yes, David did not just take a few of his buddies to pick up the ark, he gathered the nation. As king, he brought everyone, all he had as followers, to celebrate this event. And the cart wasn’t some old jalopy of a cart that had previously been used to haul manure from the stables to the back forty. It was a new cart, never used before, the best to be had for the purpose. Well, was this a grand festival designed to praise the Lord? Yes, that’s exactly what it was. But the Lord was angry and made a breach upon them because, despite all their sincerity and heartfelt intent, they did not seek Him according to the ordinance.

There are other examples of this. Nadab and Abihu were trying to light the altar’s fire so that sacrifices could be made to God but they did not do it as He commanded and were burnt up for their failure. (Leviticus 10:1-2) Jereboam changed the worship practices in fear that his new kingdom would abandon him if they continued to go to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12:25ff). He was NOT changing Who was worshiped. “thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” “Gods” is merely Elohim, the typical word for God, and in every single place in the OT where the God who brought them from Egypt is mentioned, it is always referring to YHWH God. From Exodus to Ezekiel. So, Jereboam wasn’t trying to change who they worshiped, just where they worshiped him, and the priesthood that served Him, and the festivals by which they worshiped Him. 1 Kings 16:19 is one of many passages that records the result. “Israel sinned”. Many were no doubt worshiping their God sincerely, but they weren’t worshiping “according to the ordinance” and so they sinned.

Jesus Himself discusses this. Matt. 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Holding your hands high, with your eyes closed, and calling Him “Lord” in all sincerity isn’t good enough if we aren’t also doing His Father’s will. Also, in John 4:23 “. . . true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” We have to worship in spirit AND truth. We can’t leave either out.

This is important, because there are so many people today who sincerely worship God. Who regularly “play before Him with all their might” and who call out “Lord, Lord”, but they worship in ways not taught by the New Testament. The churches they attend go beyond what the New Testament teaches and/or do things directly against New Testament teaching. They aren’t worshiping “according to the ordinance.” In trying to discuss this with friends and neighbors, how many times have you heard someone say something like “Well, God knows my heart. He will look and see that this worship comes from the heart and He will accept me”. Really? He made a breach against David because he hadn’t followed the ordinance! Are they better than David, the man after God’s own heart? If God didn’t look into David’s sincere heart and accept his erroneous worship, I sincerely doubt He’ll do that for anyone else. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SINCERE WE ARE IF WE AREN’T WORSHIPING ACCORDING TO THE ORDINANCE. After all, He is God, not us. He gets to choose how we approach Him, not us. REPEAT: He is God, not us. He gets to choose how we approach Him, not us.

While we absolutely cannot reduce our worship to some checklist we can mark off, and our hearts must be in our worship (Isaiah 1:11-15, Hos. 6:6, Micah 6:6-8), we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without doing the will of the Father. Calling out “Lord, Lord” won’t be enough. And that’s why I’m writing all of this. Not to be mean-spirited or hateful, but because I want as many people as possible to make it into the kingdom and that can only happen by doing the will of the Father, “according to the ordinance
 
Lucas Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

My cousin Kathryn in discussing the struggle for personal growth recently said this: “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” This instantly struck me as profound. “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” See, one thing I’ve discovered about Christianity is that it is about constant growth toward an ideal, rather than the instant attainment of that ideal. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning to find that I am the perfect Christian man. Sure, if I’ve been a thief, I can stop stealing instantly, get a job, and support myself and immediately get past that sin. The same can be said for a lot of sins: idolatry, adultery, drunkenness, etc. But learning to “suffer long” with my fellow man? That takes work to make it second nature. As do most of the aspects of godly love. I can instantly stop sleeping around, but the struggle to control my thoughts regarding the women I see may take a while to perfect. Etc., etc.

We see this played out throughout the Bible. Abraham, the Father of the Faithful and the Friend of God, grew his faith over the course of almost 50 years. At the end of Genesis 11 he had the faith to leave everything he knew and go to a strange land just because God told him to and made him promises. But in the very next chapter, when famine came and he had to go to Egypt for food, he showed that his faith wasn’t yet complete. Fearing for his life, he lied about his relationship with Sarai, his wife. If his faith in God’s promises was complete, he would have avoided this. (God promised him descendants. As he had no children, God could not allow him to die yet.) Almost 20 years later, in Genesis 20, he repeats this sin. And while we scorn Sarah for quietly laughing at God’s promise when she didn’t know it was God speaking, in Genesis 17 Abraham fell down laughing at God’s promise when he did know it was God speaking.

While Abraham’s faith was great from the beginning, it hadn’t yet reached its fullness. That we see in Genesis 22. This was another 15-20 years in the future, and Abraham had seen God working in his life and had seen the fulfillment of some of the promises and his faith had grown. He knew that the promise of God was to be fulfilled through Isaac, but he didn’t hesitate when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham just thought that God would raise Isaac from the dead. His faith in God’s promise, to be fulfilled in Isaac, was so strong that he just assumed resurrection! But it took him 40-50 years to get to that point.

We see this played out again and again when studying God’s servants. Gideon, David, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Esther, etc. Some started out with strong faith and understanding and just kept getting stronger, some started out with faltering faith and little understanding and became strong. But all grew as servants of the Lord over the course of their lifetimes.

This concept of continued growth is seen in the New Testament as well. Not only are the Apostles themselves excellent examples of this, but they wrote about it, too:

“Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 1:5-8)

This passage clearly implies continued effort to grow in these areas. While we don’t have to take them one at a time and can (and should) try to improve in all of these areas together, none of us are going to wake up tomorrow and be perfect in knowledge. Or patience. Or brotherly kindness. But we should be continually, day by day, getting better at each of these things. It just takes work. Notice that the first thing mentioned, before faith or virtue, is diligence. The ESV says “make every effort”. It takes work, effort, to grow.

Even the great Apostle Paul, who had the confidence to say on multiple occasion “be imitators of me as I am of Christ”, knew the struggle of continued growth:

“Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philp. 3:12-14)

Also, in 1 Corinthians 9, he says that he daily buffeted his body to keep it in subjection. It was an effort, a struggle, to keep growing and to keep from losing what he had already gained. But he did keep growing. He kept getting stronger in the faith. And we can too. It just takes effort.

Next year I’ll be closer to the ideal than I am this year. The following year, I’ll be even a little better than that. In a few decades, I’ll start getting somewhere.

“But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.”
 
Lucas Ward
 

Before you decide to excommunicate me, please listen to what I have to say.  “Scribes, Pharisees—hypocrites!” is just about all most people know about that group of Jews, but if ever a group of people desired to follow the Law of God, it was the Pharisees.  Do you think that means we shouldn’t try to follow God’s law?  I hope not.  Maybe it’s time we gave them a fair hearing

            The group was formed after the captivity.  God’s people had learned their lesson--finally!  Never again did they have a problem with idolatry, and the Pharisees were one reason for that.  Their original intentions were as pure as they possibly could have been.  Everything they did was with the sole purpose to prevent another apostasy.

            Yes, but they became all about the rules, people say. Certainly it is wrong to be ALL about the rules.  The rules are only half of it.  That strict obedience has to come from the heart, as the prophets said over and over and over. The problem with people who say the Pharisees were ALL about the rules, is that they usually mean, they were all about the RULES, therefore following the rules is unimportant. 

            So let’s see what Jesus had to say about that.
            "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you…Matt 23:2,3.  He told them to follow the instructions of the Pharisees.  Why?  Because if anyone knew the Law, they did.  How would you like for the Lord to say that about you?  “Whatever he says, do it, because he knows what he is talking about.”  I would be thrilled for such a testimonial, especially from him.

            Jesus also said they were right to be picky about the details of the law.  They “tithe mint, anise, and cumin,” and “these things [they] ought to have done…” Matt 23:23.  They may have done other things wrong, but closely following God’s law was not one of them, at least not in Jesus’ opinion.

            If being a Pharisee were wrong, why did Paul count it an asset?  More than once he mentions being a Pharisee, and his careful following of the Law as a member of that sect, Acts 23:6; 26:4,5; Phil 3:5.  There were many “good” Pharisees, among them Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and yes, even Paul, for the things he did were “in all good conscience,” as someone zealous for the Law of God.  He would have been a hero in Old Testament Israel along the line of Phinehas in Num 25, and many New Testament Jews counted him as such before his conversion to Christianity.  Other Pharisees were also converted, truly converted, not in pretense.

            The Lord condemned many things about the Pharisees, among them hypocrisy, lack of mercy, wrong motivation, greed, spiritual blindness, and arrogance.  He condemned them for placing their traditions, which were far stricter than the law, above the law, but he never once condemned them en masse for believing that the law should be carefully followed.  Sometimes their focus was wrong.  Sometimes they missed the whole point of a law.  But they kept the law and Jesus plainly told the people to obey them.  Keeping the law as closely as humanly possible cannot be wrong.  In fact, logic says that since Jesus praised that specifically, then failing to do so would have been wrong.

            So what would Jesus say about you?  Would you be lumped in with the pious, humble, righteous Pharisees who carefully kept the Law of God in obedient faith out of a sincere heart, or would you be one who “left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy and faith,” who performed to be seen of men, and whose heart failed to match the mask he wore on the outside?  Or would you just ignore the law altogether, using the unrighteous Pharisees as your excuse?

            Be careful when you start condemning people as “nothing but a bunch of Pharisees.”  Make sure Jesus would have agreed with you.
           
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you… Matt 28:19,20.
 
Dene Ward

When we first moved over a thousand miles from my hometown, I eagerly awaited the mailman every day.  As the time approached, I learned to listen from any part of the house for that “Ca-chunk” when he lifted the metal lid on the black box hanging by the door and dropped it in.  Oh, what a lovely sound!

           My sister often wrote long letters and I returned the favor, letters we added onto for days like a diary before we sent them off.  My parents wrote, Keith’s parents wrote, both my grandmothers wrote, and a couple of friends as well.  It was a rare week I did not receive two or three letters.  This generation with their emails, cell phones, and instant messaging has no idea what they are missing, the joy a simple “clunk” can bring when you hear it.

            I was far from home, in a place so different I couldn’t always find what I needed at the grocery store.  Not only were the brands different—and to a cook from the Deep South, brands are important—but the food itself was odd.  It was forty years ago and the Food Network did not yet exist.  Food was far more regional. 

          The first time I asked for “turnips,” I was shown a bin of purple topped white roots.  In the South, “turnips” were the greens.  I asked for black-eye pea and cantaloupe seeds for my garden, and no one knew what they were.  I asked for summer squash and was handed a zucchini.  When I asked for dried black turtle beans—a staple in Tampa—they looked at me like I was surely making that one up.

          So a letter was special, a taste of home in what was almost “a foreign land,” especially to a young, unsophisticated Southern girl who had never seen snow, didn’t know the difference between a spring coat and a winter coat, and had never stepped out on an icy back step and slid all the way across it, clutching at a bag of garbage like it was a life line and praying the icy patch ended before the edge of the stoop.

          Maybe that’s how the exiles first felt when they got Jeremiah’s letter, but the feeling did not last.  They did not want to hear his message.  They were sure the tide would turn, that any day now God would rescue Jerusalem and send Nebuchadnezzar packing.  But that’s not what Jeremiah said.

          The letter…said: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare… For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Jer 29:3-8, 10.

          You are going to be here seventy years, they were told.  Settle down and live your lives.  It took a lot to get these people turned around.  Ezekiel worked at it for years.  They may have been the best of what was left, but they were still unfaithful idolaters who needed to repent in order to become the righteous remnant.

          Which makes it even more remarkable that they had to be told to go about their lives, and especially to “seek the welfare of the city,” the capital of a pagan empire.  To them that was giving up on the city of God, the Promised Land, the house of God, the covenant, and even God Himself.  And it took years for Ezekiel to undo that mindset and make them fit to return in God’s time, not theirs.

          And us?  We have to be reminded that we don’t belong here.  We are exiles in a world of sin.  Yes, you have to live here, Paul says, but don’t live like the world does.  This is not your home.  Peter adds, Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims… 1Pet 2:11.  Too many times we act like this is the place we are headed for instead of merely passing through.

          How many times have I heard Bible classes pat themselves on the back:  “We would never be like those faithless people.”  But occasionally even they outdo us.
 
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb 11:13
 
Dene Ward

The story of Jehu has always left me a little perplexed.  God sent a prophet to anoint him king over Israel and to give him this mission:  You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, 2 Kgs 9:7.

            Jehu accomplished the mission God gave him, throwing King Joram’s body into Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, and becoming king in his place.  He went on to kill Jezebel and completely wipe out both Ahab’s descendants and the prophets and priests of Baal as well. 

            Yet, in the first chapter of Hosea you read this:  And the LORD said to him, "Call his name [Hosea’s son] Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, v 4.  Now is that fair?  God gave the man a mission and he fulfilled it, and now his descendants will be punished for the very thing God told him to do?

            No, God did not punish Jehu for his obedience.  In fact, he rewarded him.  And the LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel," 2 Kgs 10:30.  The problem was the reason he obeyed.  Later on, when far more needed doing to restore Israel to God, he failed.  But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, v 31.  When you pick and choose the commands you will obey, you are making it obvious that you are only doing what you want to do, not what God wants you to do.  What should have been the hallmark of his obedience became the thing that made his rebellion obvious—he hadn’t really obeyed then either.

            Obedience doesn’t count when it’s what you want to do anyway.  The true test of obedience comes when you don’t want to do it, when it costs you something, when it makes trouble in your life. 

            When you say, “It’s just this time, God won’t care because I have done everything else right,” you are condemning yourself just like Jehu did.  Killing the house of Ahab made him king; of course he wanted to do it.  But getting rid of the golden calves?  Now that might have angered his new followers.  Don’t want to rock the boat, do we?  After all, God, I can accomplish more if I stay in power longer, right?  I can just imagine such rationalizations springing to Jehu’s mind, the same sort of rationalizations we use when we want to get out of a difficult moment our faith has put us in.

            Examine your faith this morning.  Why are you faithful?  Have you ever fudged a little?  Was it because of your own likes and dislikes, or maybe your fear of the consequences?  Did you fail to obey because in that one instance you simply didn’t want to?  If so, then the fact that you have ever obeyed only means that in those cases you didn’t mind doing so, and that means you were only serving yourself and not God. 
 
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. Josh 22:5;  James 2:10.                                                   

Dene Ward